and before the thought finished she bolted out of bed and down the hall the few short steps to her son’s room.
Jeremy was untroubled by the chimes, or by the gathering moan of the storm outside his window. He breathed soft and even with sleep, and his face in the dim, butter-yellow of the night light reminded Dena so much of his father. But she couldn’t think of that now. She reached out to shake the tiny frame, then stopped herself. Maybe she shouldn’t wake him. Maybe she’d left some chimes outside by mistake, or maybe the gale had found a crack and was exhaling into the house. And if there were someone in the house with them, the last thing Dena needed was to have her little boy clinging to her in fear while she tried to react.
Call somebody, the thought hit her, and she turned and ran back into her bedroom for the phone. The police line was busy—Dena had figured it would be with the hurricane—so she punched the number for the Kellers next door. Morgan was an ex-marine, Marge an artist. They had helped Dena a lot after her husband left. Maybe they could help her again.
Outside, the wind tested itself on the boarded up windows, though Dena knew it would be hours before the main part of the hurricane reached them. The phone started ringing, sounding more distant than the wind, and Dena prayed her friends would answer. A moment later they did, or at least their recorder picked up. Before Dena could tell which, the first assault of rain swept against the roof; the chimes sounded as heavy drops exploded on the shingles; and the phone voice died in a crackle of static. Dena wanted to blame the storm for that static. She wanted to believe the lines had gone down outside the house. But her bedroom light was still on. Why hadn’t the electricity gone too?
At that moment, softly, the chimes began to clink together, glass against metal, curled shells against tiny brass beads. A melody wove itself into those sounds, a tune Dena recognized but wished she didn’t. Her nervous system iced over as she glanced at the dresser where her music boxes sat. An empty space marked where one piece had been thrown out. She was hearing its song now, though, transformed but recognizable.
Coincidence, Dena told herself. The human mind often added meaning to random collections of sound, like making footsteps out of an old house settling. Her body didn’t believe that line of reasoning. It just kept pumping out fear and adrenaline.
Dena bit her lip, then put down the phone and opened the drawer of the bedside table. Inside lay the 9mm Browning automatic she had bought for her husband after he was raped in the house, and before he went away to escape the self-loathing that had filled him afterwards. She thought of the music box again, and wondered if Troy really had thrown it out. The rapist had caught Troy asleep and had knocked him out and tied him up, then waited for her husband to awaken before sodomizing him. The bastard had let the music box play during the assault, and it scared Dena to think that Troy might have taken it with him.
A loaded magazine for the pistol was hidden under an old TV Guide in the drawer, and Dena stuck it in the gun and chambered a cartridge. The slide popped loudly as it closed and Dena reached out and switched off the lamp. It was near black in the house with all the windows dressed in plywood, and she didn’t want to silhouette herself with light while anyone else could stay invisible in the shadows. Besides, what if the lights went out like the phone and her eyes weren’t adjusted to the dark? Anything could come at her then. And she wouldn’t know until it had her.
With the gun in her right fist and her left hand feeling along the wall, Dena moved back toward her son’s room. She stopped just inside the door there, listening to everything with ears as wide as they would go. They reported nothing but the storm outside, nothing but rain and wind.
Inside, Jeremy slept, curled up with one bandaid-ornamented knee out from under the covers and both hands clutching his stuffed panda. Dena decided against waking him. God! She had to make sure no one could hurt him, but she didn’t dare run for it through the darkened house with him. And the plywood was nailed over the windows from outside; they couldn’t get out that way. She’d have to go downstairs by herself. Dena gripped the pistol tighter, wishing she’d practiced with it more.
She stepped into the hall and every hair follicle on her body came to life as the chimes belled out a jangling, discordant note, as if they had been ripped from the ceiling to adorn the body of someone dancing a berserk chorea. Dena sucked in a mouthful of air and almost yelled. The chimes gonged and clanged. Her finger tightened on the automatic’s trigger and she clenched her teeth instead. A gagging sound came from downstairs. Quiet followed.
“Mommy?”
Dena jumped, and turned to see Jeremy sitting up in bed. He was rubbing his eyes and she moved quickly over beside him, putting her arms around him as she lay the small head back on the pillow.
“It’s all right, Sweety. Just a noise. Go back to your dreams.”
Jeremy’s arm found his panda and pulled it to him. “Kay, Mommy,” he said. As fast as that he fell asleep again.
Dena turned back to Jeremy’s door, peeking around it to study the upstairs hallway. Her eyes were fully dark adapted now but the house stood so black that she couldn’t make out her own feet. Her ears could listen, though, and had gotten better at screening out the gale. She found herself able to ignore the outside and focus on what was inside. There was nothing to hear, however, as if all sound had been flushed from the house and the tank had to refill itself. She found herself wishing for a sound, a drip of water in the tub, a clock ticking, just something to let her know the rest of the world wasn’t all gone away.
Even more than sound, Dena wanted light. The switch for the stairwell tickled just under her hand, but she wouldn’t let herself touch it. If she touched it, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from turning it on. And once she had light she would never be able to stand the dark again, even though the dark would come. Through the agency of the hurricane, or through a more human act, the dark would come. Dena could picture herself screaming when that happened, and it would be better not to have had the light at all.
As she fought her need for light and won, Dena felt the blunting of her adrenaline rush. At least temporarily, her physiology was listening to her brain. She knew someone was in the house now. She knew she had to protect Jeremy. But she could visualize the place better in the dark than her visitor could. And she had a gun. True, she hadn’t shot much in the last few years, but she had grown up in hunting country with four older brothers and she understood how to squeeze a trigger and hit what she aimed at. She shut Jeremy’s door behind her and padded softly toward the stairs.
Dena’s way to the first floor was clear and at the base of the steps she crouched. The front door stood behind her and she could have walked out easily if she’d brought Jeremy down. But she hadn’t known the stairs would be safe. To her left opened the garage. Across the other way was the kitchen. In front of her ran the hall that split kitchen and living room off from the den and from her home office beyond. Dena’s eyes hurt as she strained to see down that hallway. Even as she stared, a set of chimes rang, as if someone’s head had brushed lightly against them.
Now Dena would allow herself light, but not the room-brightening light of the overheads. She needed something to ruin her visitor’s night sight and leave hers alone. That meant the heavy duty Maglite in the closet just down the hall. She started snailing her way toward it.
Somewhere ahead of her was a slow drip. A leak from the rain, Dena guessed. Her foot found the residue of it just as she reached the closet, and the slick wet spot that had spread across the floor almost felled her. She grabbed the doorknob for support and it creaked under her hand. The chimes rang, soughing as if a faint wind ghosted among them. Dena wanted to run, her imagination telling her that something was coming down the hall toward her in the blackness. Instead, she forced herself to open the closet and reach in for the Maglite, her skin crawling as the sleeves of raincoats and old sweaters brushed
